Shakespeare leaves the reader in no doubt as to what his play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is about. His 14 lines sonnet details the theatrical route that the story takes from its beginning to its end. Our ‘star-cross’d lovers’, the principal characters of the play, fall foul of their self-woven spider web of deceits which ends tragically with their demise, along with a few others. A depressing and a very sad end to a whirl wind romance with just one glimmer of hope emerging in that the strife between the two noble families, Capulet and Montague, comes to an end.
However, the first scene of Act 1 introduces the audience to an air of joviality the hilarious conversation between Sampson and Gregory over how to treat the women servants of the Montague’s. Sampson told Gregory ‘that he will be civil with the maids; I will cut off their heads.’ To which Gregory replies, ‘The hence of the maids?,’ followed by Sampson’s witty and extremely funny reply: ‘Aye the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads, take it in what sense thou wilt.’ Even when they were confronted with danger as two of the enemy approached, the wit is still there as shown when Gregory says that he ‘… will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.’ Sampson decides ‘…my to bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to them if they bare it.’ Nevertheless, this repartee of joviality and wit hides what is actually going on. A long lasting feud exists between the two noble families that has overflowed onto the streets of Verona and involves, not only the immediate members of the family, but their servants as well.
The dark and violent nature of the play is soon revealed when Tybalt, Lord Capulet’s nephew makes his entrance. To him the only good Montagues are dead ones as expressed when he says, ‘What, drawn and talk of peace? I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.’ Shakespeare reinforces